Appointment-Driven Communications – Part 11

TRANSCRIPT: The other communication we spoke about that needs a goal is voice mail. We need to have a goal for our voicemails and that goal is to drive a phone call. So, there are some things about our voicemails we need to do in order to take us closer to that goal of driving a return phone call. Or, of having them take our call the next time.

So, for starters, our voicemails need to be short and sweet, right? They need to be less than fifteen seconds long. We need to be sure we don’t do any selling on the voicemail; that we simply give our little piece of information and that we have a clear course of action, which is ‘call me back’, right? We create a little interest with that little piece of information. We never sell the vehicle on voicemail. We can’t sell it over the phone, how are we going to do it on voicemail? And, then we have that clear call to action and that call to action is always the same, “call me back”.

Now, in every voicemail you leave, you need to highlight your persistence. It should sound like this: “And, Bob, don’t worry if you can’t reach me right away, I’ll try you again later.” See, I’m going to highlight my persistence. I’m telling them I will call them back if they don’t reach me right away. Why would I do that? Isn’t my goal a call back? No, my goal is to drive a phone call. If the customer knows I’m going to call again and again, they will eventually take my call, right? So, I need to highlight my persistence.

I need to understand that when I get someone’s voicemail, I need to leave a message 100% of the time. “Well, Steve, I (or my team) don’t like to leave that many voicemails ‘cause it looks like I’m stalking”, you say. Time out. Everybody has caller ID. If you don’t leave a voicemail, you look like you’re stalking. Plus, the goal of a voicemail is to drive a phone call. You can’t get someone to call you back if you are just trying to catch them unaware, right? So, we’re going to leave a voicemail every time. We’re going to highlight our persistence and, even, if you’re one of these people who likes to call three times on the first day on an internet lead, that’s not a bad thing. Let’s say you get an internet lead at 8:30. You call about 9:00, and you call about 12:15 and again about 5:15 in the evening. If you don’t leave a voicemail every time, you are never going to drive a phone call. They’ll see a number they don’t recognize and they’ll let it go to voicemail every time. If you don’t leave a voicemail they assume it’s just a salesman and they’re not gonna touch it.

So, how about this: the lead comes in at 8:30 and I call the customer at 9:00. I catch voicemail and I say,”….and don’t worry if you can’t reach me right away, I’ll try you again after lunch”. 12:15 comes and I try them again. I get voicemail again and I say, “…and don’t worry if you can’t get me right away, I’ll try again after 5:00”. Sure enough, after 5:00, their phone rings, they see Century Toyota on their caller ID, guess what they’re going to do. They’re going to take the call. That’s the goal of the voicemails, to drive these calls, and we’re only able to do that if, one, we leave a voicemail every time, and, two, we highlight our persistence.

Just like with your emails, we need to measure and we need to improve our non-performing voicemails. With emails, we’ll replace. With voicemails, we’re not going to replace, just improve them. So, we’re measuring our voicemails, right? If we find we have a day three be-back voicemail and no one calls us between day three and day five on be-backs, we need to revamp that day three voicemail. It needs to be stronger to drive more call backs, or at the very least, it’s making more people take our day five call.

That’s how you manage voicemails and that’s how you manage this quality communication.